4 Tips to Improve Your 60-Yard Time for High School Baseball Players
You just ran a timed 60 and you’re disappointed in the results.
First, understand this: speed is not more important than hitting, throwing, or fielding. A slower player can absolutely play high-level baseball if their hitting and arm are strong enough. But maximizing your speed still matters, because having good speed increases your defensive range, improves your baserunning value (extra bases, steals, pressure on defenses), and gives you more position flexibility, since fast athletes can stay in premium positions longer. And most important for tryout and recruiting situations, speed can separate similar players: if two players can both hit, throw, and field well, the faster player often stands out.
In this article, I’m going to use my 20 years of experience coaching athletes and share some actionable tips you can use to improve your 30 or 60yd sprint time.
#1. Assess Your Acceleration
Speed is a complex skill that needs to be broken down into segments to better evaluate and develop. One of the first segments of speed is acceleration. To measure your acceleration, time your 0-10yd or 0-30yd sprint time. However, sprinting alone makes it hard to improve the many variables that make up the complex skill of sprinting.
Instead of just looking at your 0-10yd time, use some jump tests like the standing broad jump and vertical jump, in addition to testing your 0-10 or 0-30yd sprint times, to give you a fuller profile and more to work with in training. We’ve tested hundreds of baseball players over the years, and our data indicates a good relationship between jumping ability and speed.
If your acceleration needs work and your standing broad jump or vertical jump are also below average, this likely indicates a need to develop your general strength and power. As you train and develop your strength, incorporate jump training as well; this helps bridge the gap between the weight room and speed on the field.
If you have a good standing broad jump or vertical jump, but that power isn’t showing up in your acceleration times, that’s actually exciting, it means you already have the potential for better acceleration. The likely cause is that your start mechanics aren’t refined yet. Focus on small details, like “pushing” for power to cover ground rather than “trying to be quick”. The mindset for good acceleration is counter-intuitive; you don’t actually want to move your body as fast or as quickly as possible off the line. The goal for acceleration is to cover ground powerfully, which requires slightly different mechanics and a different mindset.
Let’s look at acceleration from two angles: a practical aspect and a technical aspect. The practical aspect is having the ability and the foundation to physically apply force into the ground to produce good acceleration. The technical aspect is knowing how to get into and maintain the ideal positions to apply the power you have. If your general strength and power are underdeveloped, then just working on good technique alone won’t take you very far; you need to also develop your ability to apply more force.
Related reading: What is and what isn’t strength training for speed development.
#2. Assessing Your Top Speed
The most practical way to asses your top speed is to run and time a 20-yard fly with a 20-yard lead-in. Similar to the jump testing above, this lets you isolate a specific portion of the 60-yard sprint, removing the acceleration variable. Check out this video to learn how to run a fly.
If your 20-yard fly is below average, you need to improve your top speed and how well you maintain it. Good acceleration is about good angles and sheer power and strength from the glutes, quads, and lower legs. Good top speed lies in vertical force application, hip flexor, ankle, and core strength, and the ability to balance power with relaxation. To improve top speed, you need to strengthen your hip flexors, ankles, and core, as well as practice maintaining top speed over 80-100 yards. Practicing at those distances does a few things; first, it naturally helps strengthen the postural muscles involved in maintaining speed, your core and hips. Second, it helps with speed maintenance and relaxation over the full 60 yards.
Having a good top speed is strongly linked to running a good 60. But this isn’t strictly about the fastest mph you can reach, it’s about how well you can “maintain” your top speed. Most high school athletes reach top speed around 30-40 yards into the sprint, which means roughly 40-50% of the 60 involves speed maintenance, not just acceleration. So if your top speed is below average, it’s going to drag down down your overall sprint time.
Good acceleration lies in angles, sheer strength and power. Good top speed lies in vertical force application, hips, and relaxation.
#3. If You’ve Plateau’d
If your acceleration and top speed is good overall; solid power, acceleration, and top-end speed, but you still haven’t been able to move the needle in a while. Here’s a concept well known in speed development: the faster you are, the more attention to detail it takes to squeeze out more performance. That doesn’t mean what you’ve done so far was wrong; it just means you need to refine some things and be more intentional.
Here are a few things you can do. First, aside from working on your weak areas, identify your strengths or the things you really enjoy; for example, if you have great leg power or really enjoy squats, double down on that and keep improving it. Second, evaluate your weight room program: if you have a coach, ask what you could do better with your strength program; if you don’t, find a solid strength program built for speed and athletic development. Third, evaluate your speed training, have you been training speed consistently, or just running a few sprints here and there?
One of the best refinements you can make to your training is keeping some kind of training journal. I don’t care if it’ just notes in your phone or a small physical journal. Having a dated record of your work working back squat of split squat reps and weight, your 0-30 yard acceleration times, your 60-80 yard sprint times, etc., is irreplaceable. Each week when you go to the weight room, you won’t have to guess what a good working weight should be for a given lift, because you can refer back to the previous weeks. Each week when you sprint, you won’t just be running blind, you’ll have times to compare and goals to set against them. Keeping a training journal provides the guidance and feedback that fuels progress and keeps you motivated.
If you need some training guidance, check out our 6-Week Speed & Strength Program for baseball athletes.
#4. Making Time
Playing school ball and club sports can consume most of your down time. Between school, practice, the school season, and the club season, you may find it hard to train consistently. So at your busiest, if you only have time for one independent training session, I would prioritize top speed work. Why? Because speed is harder to develop than strength. If you can fit in two training days, make the second day a strength, power, and mobility day. Also, if you attend a public school, they tend to focus more on the weightroom, so you’re more likely to get at least good exposure to strength. Your speed most likely is undertrained.
If your school or club practices already include running, you can absolutely count that as a speed day, as long as you know how to make the most of it. Getting the most out of team practices just takes intentionality. Don’t lazily go through the warm-ups and drills. Every skip, jump, and sprint out is an opportunity to rehearse acceleration angles, horizontal projection (covering ground), and force application. If the team is doing conditioning runs, use that as an opportunity to work on your top speed mechanics: upright posture at or near top speed, good knee lift, balanced relaxation and power, and managing deceleration under fatigue.
In Short
Improving your 60 time takes intentionality and a shift in mindset, from thinking of yourself as just a baseball player to thinking of yourself as an athlete who plays baseball. Speed is a complex skill that needs to be evaluated and trained in segments. You want to train your weak areas, but also double down on the skills and areas where you’re naturally strong. Lastly, if you want significant results, take a long-term approach to your training. Don’t just train hard when a showcase or tryout is coming up. A long-term approach means consistently training and developing over 6-12 weeks while tracking your progress.
If you want some of the guesswork removed, that’s exactly what our 6-Week Speed & Strength Program does. It’s self-paced, so you can complete the workouts on your own schedule. The program includes a downloadable PDF with tracking sheets and six weeks of access to our training app, where you can access and track your workouts from your phone.
